


After

by hockeyallthehockey



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 05:25:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15678909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hockeyallthehockey/pseuds/hockeyallthehockey
Summary: Sid could remember exactly where he was, and what he was doing, when the world ended.





	After

**Author's Note:**

> I challenged [@Zhenya71](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zhenya71/pseuds/Zhenya71) to write a fic inspired by this photo:  
>   
> You can find their fic [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15675345).
> 
> This is my own fic inspired by the same photo.

Sidney remembered people talking about where they were when they heard that JFK died, or when Michael Jackson died. It always seemed abstract to him, attaching such significance to something like that.

But Sid could remember exactly where he was, and what he was doing, when the world ended.

The thing was, it didn’t happen all at once. It took a couple of weeks, but Sid had a very vivid memory of standing at his kitchen counter, watching the morning news, when the newscaster announced that all travel between the United States and the rest of the world was being indefinitely suspended, to try to slow the spread of ‘the disease’.

He had been a week away from returning to Pittsburgh. Training camp was supposed to start soon, the season wasn’t far away… only now, more than a year later, there was no hockey season, no training camp, no electricity, no cellular network, no government, no transportation.

Most of the population of North America was gone. Those that remained were the ‘lucky’ few who were immune, though some genetic anomaly. Anyone who wasn’t immune was dead, and those who remained had run out of places to bury those who had died.

Sid had considered trying to get back to Pittsburgh, before everything shut down. He’d thought about heading further north, away from sick people. He’d ended up staying in his lake house, was _still_ in his lake house, but he was, as far as he knew, the only one in the area. He hadn’t seen another person in weeks, and the last he’d seen were on their way north from somewhere near Shag Harbour, heading towards the mainland.

Sid’s parents were buried in their back yard. His sister was - had been - in Pittsburgh, and he had no idea if she was still alive. He had no idea if anyone he had known Before was still alive. Flower, Tanger, Muzz… Geno. He couldn’t let himself think about any of them, but especially Geno. The last time they had spoken, on a staticky cell phone connection, Geno was in Pittsburgh and trying to find a way to get back to Magnitogorsk. His brother was sick, his father was gone, and his mother was starting to show symptoms.

Sid couldn’t think about that, couldn’t think about whether Geno had made it back to Russia, whether he, himself, had gotten sick and died.

He’d raided all of the nearby houses, grocery stores, and sporting goods stores he could get to. He had rooms full of canned food, dried food, emergency supplies from the sporting goods stores, bottles of water, plenty of supplies to keep himself and a dozen other people fed, but there were no other people left, not around here. He had firewood, cold weather gear, even weapons, though he’d only used the gun once, to put a dying man out of his misery, and he’d nearly pitched it into the lake, after that. He’d made it through the first winter and the following summer. And now, with winter on its way in again, he was considering if he should take the gun out to hunt, or whether he should stick to fishing. He wasn’t sure he could shoot an animal, even for food.

The scrubby woods around the lake house were going grey again, the leaves dropped and dead, and the animal population had begun to grow over the past year, without humans to chase them off. Sid heard them, most often at night, knowing he was safe in his house.

But he was the outsider, now, in their territory.

Still, he found himself picking his way through the tall grass and bare-branched trees, with the rifle across his chest, telling himself that he was just scouting, maybe looking for berries or firewood or _something_. He could have taken the road towards town - partly overgrown, but still there - if he really was scavenging, but cutting through the trees was faster, and roads were a reminder of Before, with their abandoned cars and, occasionally, skeletal remains.

The Old Man, a tree stump that Sid used as a landmark, looked lonelier, older, more _dead_ , with everything around it also going grey and dry for the winter. He stopped and leaned against the trunk of The Old Man, looking at the treeline across the meadow, just barely able to make out the motionless hulk of a once-bright-red pickup on the road beyond.

And then something moved.

It wasn’t a forest-dweller, unless it was a damn tall bear walking upright, which meant that it had to be a person. Whoever it was, their jacket was drab olive green, probably military or surplus, and the frame pack on their back was black.

Sid just stared for a minute, and then pushed off the tree trunk and started towards the road, aiming to intercept the blacktop a good ways in front of the stranger. He stepped out of the trees and turned, and the other person stopped, spotting him right away. For a moment, they were both motionless, and then the other person took a couple of steps forward. “Sid?”

Sid took a step back, and then stopped, shaking his head. It couldn’t be. It could _not_ be, he was hallucinating, or maybe dreaming, there was no way Geno was standing just a few yards away from him, in an ugly army-green jacket, with more beard on his face than Sid had ever seen on him during the playoffs.

“Sid?” Geno said again, and Sid knew that voice, knew it like he knew his own. He swallowed hard and took a step forward. And then they were both moving, running towards each other, and the rifle dropped to the cracked blacktop as they threw their arms around each other. Sid knocked Geno back a few steps before they came to a stop against a rusting black SUV.

Sid couldn’t hear anything over the roaring in his ears, and when sound filtered back in, it was Geno’s voice, choked and wet, babbling in Russian in his ear. They were both crying, and Sid didn’t want to let go, not even to look at Geno’s face.

Sid finally pulled back enough to get both hands on Geno’s face and kiss him, with all the desperation of more than a year of wondering, of eleven years of being the other half to each other’s whole. Geno kissed him back with just as much desperation, and then pulled him close again, all but sobbing into Sid’s long hair.

Sid couldn’t speak, couldn’t make words come out, and eventually he drew back enough to just tug on Geno’s arm, to lead him back to the lake house. He bent to pick up the rifle, automatically checking it over, and then laced his fingers with Geno’s and followed the road back home.

Once they got there, he got a fire going to heat bathwater, helped Geno shed his frame pack and the multitude of pouches and tools hanging from his two belts, then stripped him out of his clothes and checked him for injuries. He still hadn’t said a word.

Geno let him do it, and gave up trying to talk to him after a few minutes, just pulled him close every once in a while, never mind his state of dress, to hold on and mumble Russian endearments.

When the water was hot, Sid left Geno to bathe - the bathtub still worked to hold water, after all - and pulled together a meal. He’d caught fish that morning, and it went on the woodfire grill alongside a cast-iron pot of baked beans and another of mixed vegetables. He had apples, still - the harvest season was past, so they wouldn’t last much longer - and the corn he’d planted and harvested would be sweet and crunchy with the fish, so he put two cobs in water to boil and steam, too. And then he got the laundry pit fire going, so he could wash Geno’s clothes - God knew they needed it - and found something clean of his own that would fit Geno until they could find him more clothes that were in his sizes.

Supper was almost ready by the time Geno came out, scrubbed clean, shaved clean, with his long, long hair damp and loose around his shoulders. He folded Sid up in another hug, and just held him for a few minutes, then let go to sit down and dig into the food set out on the table. He commented on the food as they ate, and on the solar-powered lights, solar-charger that let Sid play music from his phone, solar adapter that let Sid power a small hot plate or kettle inside, or a small heater or fan.

When they were done eating, Sid heated up water to wash the dishes, and then they sat on the sofa in front of the wide windows facing out towards the lake. It wasn’t yet dusk, the fireflies weren’t out yet. Geno reached over to take Sid’s hand, and Sid squeezed his fingers. His chest felt tight, like there was something inside that needed to get out. He closed his eyes, squeezed Geno’s fingers tighter, and Geno turned toward him. “Sid?”

Sid shook his head and tried to take a deep breath, but he couldn’t. His breath came shorter, and faster, and Geno reached to take him by the shoulders, giving him a little shake. He was saying Sid’s name, but Sid couldn’t hear him. His heartbeat was thundering in his ears, and all he could do was reach for Geno and hold on, his arms probably far too tight around Geno’s chest and back. After a long few minutes, he realized that it wasn’t his heartbeat pounding in his ears - it was the sound of his own voice, sobs torn from his chest and belly.

Geno held him and rocked him, murmured nonsense to him in Russian, and let Sid cry himself out. By the time Sid came back to himself, it was nearly full dark, and he was more _in_ Geno’s lap than out of it. He cleared his throat, found that he couldn’t breathe through his stuffy nose, and swallowed hard a few times. Geno didn’t say anything, just held him a little tighter and dropped a kiss to his hair.

Sid took a deep breath, now that he could, held it for a moment, and then sighed it out and burrowed closer to Geno’s chest. “I thought you were dead,” he said, finally, his voice ragged and rough. “Geno… I thought you were dead.”

Geno ducked his head to bury his face against Sid’s hair again. “You have to know I’m always come back to you, Sid,” he said, his own voice thick. “Always. I’m promise never leave you alone.”

Sid’s breath hitched again and he exhaled shakily. “I’ve been alone for more than a year.”

“Not alone now, l’vionachik*,” Geno murmured into his hair. “Not alone now, never be alone again.”

**Author's Note:**

> * - little lion
> 
> \--  
> Come yell about hockey with me on Tumblr! I'm [hockeyallthehockey](http://hockeyallthehockey.tumblr.com).


End file.
